Any thoughts on pendants?

[Robin Hewitt]

I to feel a terrible temptation to put too much on it, hence the question :whistling:

If I think about it logically, the pendant is only useful when I want to have my eyeballs close to the tool tip for positioning purposes.

To do that it needs buttons for Up, down, N, S, E and W.

Some kind of speed control would be handy.

Most everything else is more conveniently done by screen, keyboard and mouse.

Perhaps the only extra button that might ever be used is "Continue", although an "Aargh" could be handy.

Just fishing for ideas

[ptjw7uk]

Best thing I would wish for is an 'undo' button!
or
possibly 'I wouldnt do that!'

Bet Santa couldnt bring one!

Have a good day now!

Peter

[Tom]

This is the first time I've thought about it, but this is what I'd find useful.

3 Buttons:
E-stop
Pause
Play / Unpause

2 Buttons:
Jog +
Jog -

Rotary switch:
Off
Select x
Select y
Select z

Rotary switch:
Jog scale 0.01
Jog scale 0.1
Jog scale 1.0
etc

A headphone jack to connect my touchoff plate (and an LED to check it's working before it drives the cutter through the table because of a faulty connection)

2 more buttons:
Feed override - up
Feed override - down

Possibly 2 more buttons (but only if I can work out how to acknowledge the tool change screens in EMC2 from the pendant, without going back to the PC:
G92.2, and raise Z to zero to do a tool change
G92 to reset the co-ordinates, and re-start after tool change.

Hmm, yep, not so small and dinky either.
Have you seen this post on Anders Wallin's blog?
http://www.anderswallin.net/2006/11/jogging-emc2/